NPA admits holding Army personnel and barangay official in Compostela Valley as prisoners of war

By Ronron
October 17, 2007

The communist New People’s Army (NPA) has admitted taking a barangay official and two Army personnel last October 7 in Compostela Valley province, saying the three are being investigated for violating International Humanitarian Law.

“Army detachment commander Sgt. Raul Reyes, and para-military members Glorieto Mahumas (the barangay captain of Kanidkid in Montevista, Compostela Valley) and Rudy Villaflor are being held as prisoners of war,” the NPA’s Alejandro Lanaja Command in Southern Mindanao said in a press statement dated October 14, 2007.

“As part of the Philippine government’s war machinery, they are facing preliminary investigations for the complaints filed against them that may constitute war crimes and violations against International Humanitarian Law and against civilians in Montevista, Compostela Valley provoince,” it added.

At around 9am last October 7, some 20 to 30 NPA members posed themselves as soldiers and went first to Mahumas’ residence. Immediately when they held him hostage, they asked him to summon Reyes and Villaflor to his house. The two were later held hostage too.

The NPA statement said the perpetrators were able to seize 16 high-powered firearms from the detachment, consisting of six M14, eight Garand rifles, one M16, and one .357 caliber pistol, and several rounds of ammunition and military equipment.

The statement said Mahumas and Villaflor were being investigated for being “thoroughly active in local para-military recruitment” and being “instrumental in putting up military detachments in the Montevista villages.”

It also alleged the military units in the area, particularly the 72nd and 60th Infantry Battalions, to be “notorious in committing grave human rights abuses and violations.”

Col. Benito de Leon, spokesman of the Davao-based 10th Infantry Division of the Philippine Army, said they are already preparing the charges against the perpetrators of the abduction incident.

“There is an ongoing operation to track and retrieve the abducted personnel,” de Leon said in a text message to Manila Shimbun.

But the NPA claims it is according Mahumas, Reyes and Villaflor “their rights to humane treatment and due process while in detention.”

“This is in accordance to their status as a Prisoner of War under the war protocols, the GRP-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law, and the 1996 NDFP Unilateral Declaration of Undertaking to Apply the Provisions of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Protocol 1 of 1977,” it said./DMS